Flames
by Commonly Known As Valkyrie
Summary: After a bad experience on fanfiction, resulting in a bad story and a dozen flames, Mark seeks out a Beta Reader to help him become fanfiction's best author. After hiring the Site's rudest, yet best, Beta, Mark gets more than he bargained for.


Mark was getting desperate.

After his first attempt at a fanfiction had been met with an awful lot of flames and criticism from some of the Website's most notorious critics, he had the story deleted and made a vow to publish a story that generated hundreds--no, thousands--of reviews praising his work from all his readers, including those totally evil flamers who had crushed his dreams to become a writer.

The first chapter was done, if you could even consider it more than a rough, rough draft. The now familiar red and green squiggles highlighting his work covered the screen, but Mark made no move to correct them. That was the Betas job, wasn't it?

Mark, fortunately, had enough sense to take his critics advice and get a Beta reader. He had sent his story to at least a dozen fellow writers with Beta reader profiles, and every single one of them refused to correct his work, complaining it was impossible to read, let alone correct. A few of the nastier people had written to him, making rude comments about his school grades, mental health, and social life with an unnecessary amount of vulgar language thrown in for good measure. Their words stung, but Mark refused to be discouraged. In a last desperate decision, he decided to ask _her_.

The 'her' he was referring to was Beta reader and critic extraordinaire, oh-no-it's-chlo. Perhaps not quite as rude as her fellow flamers, but she was definitely hard to please.

It didn't matter what she read, or who wrote it, she would spend hours sitting in front of the computer, picking out all the mistakes she could find, and transferring it into the nastiest, yet helpful, review she could. She didn't hold back. She didn't sugar-coat anything. She spoke her mind, and it was bloody annoying.

But, as was stated many times now, Mark was desperate. If anyone could help him become fanfiction's most respected author, it was oh-no-it's-chlo.

Mark read over her Beta reader profile, chuckling nervously. She, luckily, wasn't one of the authors who had read and flamed his failure of a story. During the short three days it had been posted, she had been on a road trip with her family. Upon her return, some of her friends on the Site had told her at great lengths the horror she had missed, and she had been sorely disappointed not to have been able to review it for herself.

Going back to her profile, Mark clicked the 'Send Message' button.

Mark hastily typed out a half-written message and pressed 'Send'.

'_hi wil ubeta my story pls?'_

Mark waited for a few agonizing minutes before refreshing the page. One new Inbox message from oh-no-it's-chlo.

'Pardon? Oh, I see what your saying. My apologies, I'm not very fluent in chat-speak. English only, and a little bit of French. Yes, I suppose I will Beta your story. From what I've heard, you certainly need help. Meet me at Base tomorrow at 2:30pm sharp.'

Mark paused briefly, staring at the computer screen with a look of confusion, before replying.

'U mean, in persn? i always thot i just send u de story doc. nd whrs base?'

'DocX is only for losers and bad Betas. Anyone worth hiring works at Base; Beta Base. It's just across the street from Critic Central and the Flamer's Foundation. And yes, this will be in person. Got a problem with this, then go ask for another 'Beta', kid.'

Mark huffed, offended by the last comment.

'im 23. nd who came up with deez names anyway? beta base, critic centrl, flamers fondatin?

The reply from oh-no-it's-chlo took a few minutes to come, as if she was taken aback by his age, and had no idea how to reply.

'Oh. Sorry. -Ahem- Anyway, I agree. The names are kind of lame, if you ask me. Firefly99, that's who named them. Never met her before, but apparently, she's a really lazy author with a short attention span, and a tight schedule.'

'alrite...' wrote Mark, 'but how do i find dis plc?'

'Just Google it, or try Map Quest. We're not exactly a secret society or anything. We're remarkable easy to find.'

Sure enough, Beta Base showed up on Google Maps. Oh-no-it's-chlo was right, Base wasn't very discreet or anything. In fact, Beta Base was located about an hour's drive away from where Mark lived, at the local pizza parlor.

Mark printed out the directions, replied to oh-no-it's-clo confirming a time for the meeting, printed out his roughly 300 word story, laid out his clothes for the next day (A suit barely worn once. He had bought it for his uncle's wedding, but the wedding was canceled when the bride had a heart attack half way through the ceremony. Obviously, the festivities were canceled. Poor Uncle Bob), had a shower, and went to bed. Only after setting his alarm clock for 6:15 AM and checking several times that the clock didn't magically reset itself.

Finally certain that the alarm would go off on time, Mark quickly drifted off to sleep. That night, he dreamed that he had become the most respected and loved author on fanfiction. His stories had hundreds of reviews, from critics and nice people alike. He was amazing! Sensational!

We can't forget that he was only dreaming.

**A/N: I've done multiple versions of this, and I'm still not completely satisfied. What are your thoughts? Please tell! Also, I mean no offense by this story, not all writers on fanfiction are like darling Mark, and write in chat-speak ^_^**


End file.
